


Happy Birthday Sam

by PlatonicRabbit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Charlie Lives, Established Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Fix-It of Sorts, Gabriel in the Bunker, M/M, Sam gets a happy birthday, canon divergence from around 10.21, crack that takes itself seriously, kind of cracky, like a lot cracky, written far too late at night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatonicRabbit/pseuds/PlatonicRabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s birthday has never been a great time of year. In fact, as often as not it falls on the worst days of his life. This year, Gabriel is here to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Plotting

**33 years ago…**

In a small but charming suburban house in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, a witch named Martha was furiously chanting.

Seething to herself, Martha recalled the humiliation of earlier that afternoon, when that upstart Mary had had the gall to walk into their book club’s meeting with a damn newborn, when _her_ little Peter was just starting to talk.  
Her Petey should have had the limelight. Should have been cooed over and had his rosy cheeks pinched and his mother complimented. Not that queue-jumper Winchester baby.

Little Sam Winchester might be only six days old. But he would rue the day he stole Petey’s spotlight, as long as Martha had anything to say about it.

 

**April 28th, 2016:**

Sam was reading a battered and mildewy copy of the Silmarillion he’d found at a second hand store that had been haunted by the original owner of one of the books when Gabriel popped into the bunker.

Sam didn’t notice the angel at first, until Gabriel decided to once again play his favourite game, Mess With Sam’s Head.

The book was abruptly snatched out of Sam’s hands. He squawked a protest and tried to grab it back, but Gabriel had apparently decided to set it on fire.

‘I was reading that,’ Sam said, glaring at the archangel.

‘I know.’ Gabriel watched Sam’s book burn with relish. ‘I’m saving you from it. It’s a worthless pile of my family’s plagiarised, butchered history.’

Sam just stared at him. ‘Gabriel, how long have you been living on Earth?’

Gabriel shrugged, and let the crumbling ashes of Sam’s novel fall to the bunker floor. 

Sam’s jaw set into a hard line. ‘Have you never once paid attention, or do you react like that to everything that draws on your family history? Because I’m not sure you noticed, but you it’s pretty heavily influential.’

Gabriel ground the ashes into the floor with the heel of his boot. Sam wondered how long angel warding would keep Gabriel out of the bunker before he got around it.

‘Anyway, I’ve seen pictures of you LARPing as Mr. Tumnus at Comicon with Charlie, so I’m calling bullshit on the “plagiarism” offending you. What have you got against Tolkien?’

The angel grinned at him and sauntered off towards the kitchen- Sam’s kitchen. Which he never bothered to clean after using. Sam stared at the mess on the floor that used to be his favourite book. 

‘Clean this up or I’m banishing you.’ He called to Gabriel’s retreating back. He heard a snap and the pile vanished.

Sam decided not to risk his copy of The Hobbit and grabbed The Princess Bride from his shelf instead, pretending to read it while going over warding spells in his head.

Dick angels.


	2. Baking at 3 AM

After banishing Gabriel from the bunker Sam was granted a few days of peace; until the morning he woke up to suspicious noises in the bunker’s kitchen.

Sam pulled his jeans on and trudged to the door, grumbling under his breath. He took out his gun, just in case it wasn’t Dean or Gabriel making the noise (Castiel had more manners than that), and stumbled out into the main living area. The noises grew progressively more audible until Sam could make out Gabriel’s voice humming along to music Dean would never have approved of.  
Mystery solved, then. Gabriel was alone in his midnight kitchen raiding.

Sam had really been hoping the anti-angel warding he'd put up would last longer. Although he suspected Gabriel had had help getting back inside; Dean’s beer run the day before had run suspiciously overtime.

There was a truly disturbing amount of smoke coming out of the bunker’s oven and two very flustered supernatural beings were trying unsuccessfully to hide it. Apparently Sam had been wrong about Gabriel being alone.

‘Sam!’ Gabriel caught sight of his boyfriend and stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights expression. ‘It’s three in the morning. Go back to sleep! We’re not ready.’

Sully beside him was still frantically trying to hide the thing they’d taken out of the oven, which Sam could only assume was supposed to be a cake. It seemed to have exploded. Messily.  
And knowing Sully, the gooey stuff that had landed all over the kitchen bench was baked marshmallow.

Sully gave up on the cake at around the same time Sam lost his control on his laughter.

‘Okay, well, it’s not perfect, but, it’s your favourite!’ The Zanna presented his disaster of a cake proudly. ‘Chocolate marshmallow lava cake!’

Sam couldn’t deny that that actually sounded good.  
So he had a sweet tooth. Sometimes. When marshmallows were involved. It was a childhood weakness.

Gabriel pushed a plate of the suddenly mysteriously sliced up (and much less burnt) cake towards Sam, before wolfing into his own slice.

Sully, however, wasn’t paying attention. The Zanna stared off into space for a moment before making his excuses and popping out. ‘Tyler needs my help!’

Sam stared at the empty space where he’d been. ‘I didn’t know Sully already had a new kid.’

Gabriel shrugged. ‘It’s only recent. I'm sure he'll be back in time for the party.’

They ate the cake in relative silence, Sam still trying to wake up properly and figure out why his childhood friend and boyfriend had been baking in his kitchen at three in the morning. When it was gone, Gabriel turned to the pile of presents Sam was sure he would have noticed, had they been there earlier. Gabriel was growing much sneakier with the magic. He hadn’t snapped his fingers once.

The pile of colourful boxes now standing beside him was taller than the archangel’s vessel. It was almost as tall as Sam, and more than a little intimidating.

‘Okay, what’s going on?’ Sam finally gave in and asked. ‘You’re… Trying to be nice to make up for setting my book on fire?.

Gabriel scoffed. ‘Please. That book had it coming. Speaking of that, though, you should open this one first.’

Beaming, the angel presented Sam with a rectangular box from somewhere near the middle of the pile, after a moment spent going over the boxes to determine which one he wanted.  
There was a card attached to the box, which Sam opened it to discover it was his birthday.

‘Oh,’ he said, looking up at the archangel, who was still smiling indulgently at his human.

‘Happy birthday Sammich. Now, open the presents!’

Sam frowned slightly, pressing the card closed and tucking it into his back pocket. ‘Gabe,’ he started, then paused. He really hated to wipe the eager look off Gabriel’s face, but it couldn’t be helped.

Gabriel had, of course, noticed Sam’s less than enthusiastic reaction, and was looking a bit crestfallen.

‘You haven’t even opened them; and you’re starting a serious conversation? Am I still in trouble over burning your book? I promise I’ll fix it! Come on, Sammy, you can’t break up with me on your birthday.’

Sam sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand, shaking his head. ‘We don’t celebrate my birthday,’ he said bluntly.

Gabriel frowned, but his shoulders untensed a little. ‘Well, that’s just dumb. Was that one of John’s rules, because I thought you’d gotten past most of’-

‘It’s not.’ Sam cut in. ‘Look, Gabriel… It’s true I didn’t have many good birthdays as a kid. But we still tried. Dean almost always at least phoned and if he was around he usually found a way to get some sort of cake. There was one year it was raw cookie dough squashed into a cake shape but most years dad actually gave Dean money for a cake.’

Gabriel was never happy with Sam’s anecdotes about his childhood, but this one seemed to disappoint him more severely than usual. Perhaps because he’d gotten himself into a partying mood beforehand.

‘Then at college… The first birthday there was just really lonely. I was hoping that dad or at least Dean would call, and they didn’t. The second year, Brady dumped me the night before, and the third year Jess and I had a fight and almost broke up.’

‘And your fourth year?’ Gabriel asked.

Sam smiled a little at the memory. ‘That one… that was a good one. But the year after that it was the six month anniversary of… and the year after that, I died, and then Dean died, and then a couple of years later I jumped into the cage the day on my birthday. And after five thousand years in Hell the concept of birthdays sort of lost it’s meaning. Oh and last year Dean told me he thought I should be dead, on my birthday. I've forgiven him, because the Mark made him say it. But I still remember.’

Gabriel whistled and folded his arms across his chest.There was a frown growing on his face and he looked up with narrowed eyes to stare at Sam in some kind of angelic way that let the hunter know Gabriel was doing something with his powers.  
‘Can I check something?’ the angel asked.

Sam shrugged.

Gabriel pressed two fingers against his head. ‘You know, I have no clue how I managed to miss this,’ he said, sounding downright pissed.

‘Miss what?’ Sam frowned. There was a whooshing sensation and Sam felt… lighter, somehow.

‘Luck curse. Probably placed on you as a very small child. It doesn’t create bad luck, just makes it… congregate, I guess, at the time of the witch’s choosing. I’d say one of your parents pissed off a witch when you were a baby, kiddo.’

Sam felt lightheaded. He leaned against the bunker wall. ‘I’ve been cursed, for thirty years, and you didn’t notice?’ he asked, incredulous.

‘Well, after that long, and considering how young you were… It’s older than the demon blood, Sam. It was kind of ground into your soul. Some nasty piece of work really had it in for you.’ he glanced up at Sam’s face. ‘Witches are fair game for the more deadly tricks, right? Especially the ones that put curses on babies?’

Sam stared down at Gabriel. ‘Uh… sure. Knock yourself out. But… Does this mean it’s over? No more terrible things happening on my birthday every year?’

‘Well, terrible things will still happen at exactly the same rate as before. You just won’t be able to mark them ahead of time on the calendar. And you’ll get your birthday back. Good enough or do I have to throw in naked birthday cuddles too?’

Sam slumped down against the wall, disbelieving.

‘So…’ Gabriel leaned in. ‘Isn’t this worth a little celebration?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THEN SAM NEVER HAD A TERRIBLE BIRTHDAY AGAIN


	3. Gabriel's Gifts

‘Sam, goddammit, birthday or not I will spray you with a water gun if I walk in on you making out with the Trickster before I've had any coffee.’

Apparently Dean’s pre-coffee morning attitude was unaffected by the curse being lifted. Sam drew back from Gabriel and stood up, only to be hit in the face by a shoddily wrapped… something.

‘We’re all up except Cas, and he needs his beauty sleep. So there’s your present. Have fun, bitch.’ Dean picked up his coffee and left the room.

‘Jerk,’ Sam replied distractedly to Dean’s retreating back.  
He ripped the newspaper wrapping open and his face flushed as red as the cherry lube in his hand when he realized what it was.

‘Since when do you get embarrassed about a bottle of lube?’ Gabriel asked, amused.

‘Since my brother gave it to me,’ Sam shot back.

Gabriel just laughed at Sam and took the bottle out of his hand, presumably hiding it in a pocket somewhere to be brought out when they needed it.

‘This one next,’ he prompted, pushing the same box towards Sam that he’d offered earlier.

Sam grinned widely and delicately peeled the wrapping back. He’d barely ever had wrapping paper as a kid, because Dean had usually removed it to make sure he wasn’t stealing the wrong kid’s toys by mistake again, and he was damn well going to keep this paper now he had the chance. Sam folded the paper up with one hand and put it in his back pocket.

The box itself, once the paper was removed from it, was made of a reddish wood and looked suspiciously like it had been hand-carved with Elvish lettering. Sam’s inner Tolkien geek screamed. He carefully unclasped it (Gabriel really had gone a bit overboard).  
Sam’s eyes widened.

‘Gabriel, are these first editions?’ he whispered, running his hands over the pristine hardcovers.

‘Yup. The real deal, kiddo. I went time hopping and queued for those like a human. No theft or grace-copies here. Or mouldy old ones you probably found in a dump. Sorry about your other copy, by the way. I had to get rid of it somehow.’

Sam was about to protest that, but Gabriel cut him off. ‘Open one.’

Sam did to find it was signed; and made out to him personally, no less. He checked the other four books to find them all the same. He stared at Gabriel, speechless.

‘I also magicked them a little. Just so they’re damage resistant. So you can actually read them. I know you don’t like me doing that for everyday things, though, so I can take it off if you’d prefer?’

Sam shook his head, mutely, still staring down at his personalised set of Lord of the Rings books.  
Charlie would be so jealous.

'About the dedication...' He started.

Gabriel waved him off. 'What's a little time-travel to an Archangel?'

Sam tried again. 'Isn't that... against the rules?'

'Well, yeah, but no more so than dating you in the first place, and the only ones who really have the authority to tell me off for it are stuck downstairs anyway, so I'm not worried.'

An image of how some of the more prickly angels the Winchesters had met over the years would react to Gabriel's blatant disregard of rules popped into Sam's head. He tried not to laugh at the image of Zachariah turning purple and spluttering incoherently at Gabriel.

The books were soon put aside for the moment so Gabriel’s other dozen or so presents could be opened in turn. 

There were new shirts to replace the ones he’d lost to hunts over the last few months. A new laptop, which Sam almost didn’t accept until Gabriel pointed out that he owed Sam a computer from nine years ago, and that it was the most easily obtained item on the list by far. There were several packets of sweets, which made Sam roll his eyes and ask which of them the presents were for (though when Gabriel turned away he hid some up his sleeve). Gabriel just snorted and threw a marshmallow at Sam’s head, which the hunter caught in his mouth.

A few lore books Gabriel had hand-copied from his personal library, because Sam had had to be physically dragged away from them last time they’d visited Gabriel’s apartment and the old magic couldn’t simply be duplicated by Grace. There was also an Enochian dictionary and grammar book, which confused Sam as Castiel and Gabriel had both told him such a thing didn’t exist, until he read the dedication in the front and realised Gabriel had written it himself. For Sam.

The next box Gabriel handed him felt somewhat empty when Sam picked it up. Inside were just two sheets of paper- one was a design for the most complicated sigil Sam had ever seen, and the other a voucher for a tattoo parlour, for one prepaid tattoo.  
Sam ran through a list of common themes in sigils in his head, trying to take a guess at what it did before asking Gabriel. It seemed to be based on stealth and balance sigils, but beyond that, Sam couldn’t tell.  
He looked up at Gabriel.

‘It’s to improve your efficiency in combat- let you get the drop on monsters for once. I used sigils for balance, stealth, dexterity and magic resistance. You’re already about as warded as a human can physically be, so combat sigils seemed like the most useful ones I could make. That’s if you want them, of course. I know you don’t like relying on magic for hunts.’

Sam just smiled and tucked Gabriel’s sigil design into the voucher. ‘I love it, and it sounds amazing. Using warding doesn’t count as cheating on hunts, anyway,’ Sam gestured towards his ribs and collarbone as he spoke.

The next box held a lamp which Gabriel explained was to sit on Sam’s bedside table or desk. ‘No more ruining your beautiful eyes with all that late night research, Samshine.’

In another box were five of the fluffiest woolen jumpers and several pairs of the thickest socks Sam had ever seen. Just a touch was enough to confirm they were as soft and warm as they looked. Half a flock of sheep had probably gone into them.

Four of the boxes Gabriel wouldn’t allow Sam to open at all, telling him simply that they could wait for later that night.  
Sam took a look in one and was utterly mystified as to the exact purpose of the object it contained. But apparently Gabriel had planned an interesting night for them.

Dean stumbled back into the kitchen at that point, in search of more coffee and dragging Castiel along with him this time. 

The seraph, surprisingly, remembered to wish Sam a happy birthday and pushed a second newspaper-wrapped parcel into his hands. ‘I have observed your fondness for this mixture. This particular variety comes with “guaranteed freshness and superior taste.”  
Sam blinked at this description, which didn’t make any sense until he unwrapped Castiel’s gift and finds the angel had bought him a salad.

It was a very expensive salad, to be fair.

Castiel looked extremely proud of himself, and hadn’t seen Dean and Gabriel’s exasperated responses, so Sam decided not to burst his bubble. ‘Thanks Cas, it looks great,’ He smiled as warmly as he could before placing the salad in the fridge. ‘It’ll be nice to have at least one meal today that’s healthy,’ Sam indicated the sweets that had been steadily piling up on the table as he’d opened Gabriel’s presents.

The archangel behind Castiel adopted a mock hurt look and reached around his brother to steal a handful of Sam’s sweets, presumably in retaliation. Sam just smiled at him.

Dean, finished pouring his coffee by now, took it and dragged Castiel back out of the kitchen, heading in the general direction of his own bedroom.

As soon as they were gone Gabriel picked up the four boxes of what Sam was pretty sure were sex toys, and looked up at the hunter, eyes gleaming. ‘It’s a good thing you woke up so early. Now we might get to try half of these before the end of the day,’ he leered.

Sam rolled his eyes and followed Gabriel out of the room.

It was only six in the morning, and it was already the best birthday Sam Winchester had ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had help with this chapter, mainly with brainstorming presents!
> 
> SO thanks go tooooo.....
> 
> Lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell, Wordssometimesfail, Yes-ima-fluffy-unicorn, Synergygabriel, Casandsip and GreyMichaela!


	4. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Sully organize a party for Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because he's probably never had an actual birthday party, except maybe a small one in College, because it would have been during finals and he wouldn't have had time for a real party even then.

Several hours later Sam woke up again, not alone this time. Gabriel was sitting up in bed, humming to himself and doing something to Sam’s hair. Sam tried to slap the angel’s hands away, but after gingerly patting his head discovered it was too late.

‘I thought I told you to stop doing that,’ he grumbled as he stood, beginning to pick at his hair.

Gabriel shrugged. ‘I get bored while you're sleeping. And it’s all shiny and soft and it’s right there.’ The angel stretched and stood up, snapping to summon his pants instead of searching the room for them.

‘How can someone who’s been around since the beginning of the universe be a literal toddler?’ Sam tugged at the braids until his fingers were caught in them.

‘Stop ruining my artwork,’ Gabriel looked up from buttoning his jeans.

Sam rolled his eyes and gave Gabriel a look. ‘Gabe…’

‘Fine,’ Gabriel drew the word out into a complaint, but with a snap, Sam’s hair was untangled and neatened. Apparently washed and conditioned too, Sam discovered as he ran his hands over it to check.

They left the room to find someone had hung ribbons along the bunker hallway. Sam blinked at it. ‘Uh…’

Gabriel laughed at him. ‘Oh. you didn’t think the birthday celebrations were over, did you? We have almost eleven hours left to celebrate, Sam-a-lam.’

 

They followed the ribbon to the library, where they found a full-scale party underway. Dean was standing in the middle of the room, beer in hand and silly grin on his face. One arm was securely wrapped around Castiel at his side, as always.  
Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother so unreservedly happy.

On one of the tables, Jody, Donna and Linda Tran were unboxing another cake while Sully looked on from a distance. When the Zanna tried to move closer Jody looked up warningly and he froze, rooted to the spot. ‘Kitchen ban, remember, Sully?’

Claire looked up from the other side of the table where she was sitting with Alex and a nervous-looking Kevin.

‘Haha,’ she told Sully smugly and grabbed a cookie from a side plate, biting into it and watching the Zanna watch her eat before going back to her conversation.

Something hit Sam, hard, in the back and he stumbled before catching himself. There was red hair floating in his face and tiny arms wrapped around his shoulders.

‘Happy birthday!’ Charlie practically shouted in Sam’s ear before letting go and dropping to the floor.

She bounced off to join Eileen, who was giggling at them from a corner. The blonde hunter beamed and waved at Sam before turning her attention to Charlie.

Sam was beaming, stunned by the sudden party. He’d been expecting the usual celebration in quieter times, not that they’d had those in a few years. A few beers, pizza and a movie with Dean and maybe Cas, and this year, probably as much birthday sex as Gabriel could talk him into.  
Plus what he’d walked in on that morning with Sully and Gabriel.

Sam wandered through the room, greeting friends one by one. Some of them, like Kevin, he hadn’t seen in months, years even. There were gifts from everyone sitting on the table, though Sam was relieved to see most of them looked small.

After the meeting and greeting was done, and Dean had given a truly mortifying speech (“I wasn’t there for your 21st, Sammy, so I’m damn well taking this opportunity while it’s here”) complete with embarrassing photographs that couldn’t have possibly existed without interference from a certain archangelic menace, Gabriel declared it cake time.

Sam was surprised when there was widespread insistence on following the kissing tradition after he let the knife touch the plate.

He was less surprised when Gabriel insisted that he be the “girl” Sam had to kiss. ‘C’mon, Sammy, I’m technically genderless anyway, remember?’

Sam thought that logic was a little flawed, but it wasn’t worth complaining.

The cake was wonderful and creamy and sweet and clearly well-baked in a way Sam hadn’t tasted since the last birthday party he’d been to for Jess’ mother, more than a decade earlier.  
Sam ended up eating two slices, and sharing a third with Gabriel.

Stomach aching, he groaned when Dean shouted ‘Head’s up, bitch,’ and threw a parcel at him from across the room.

He caught it an inch from his face. ‘Jerk,’ he shouted back, ripping into the newspaper wrapping.

It was a photo album, small but thick and leatherbound. Sam gazed at in in surprise. He opened the cover to discover Dean had taken the liberty of inserting Sam’s photo collection into the sleeves.

‘Figured that way you’d stop carrying them around everywhere and letting them get covered in blood and dirt and monster guts,’ Dean called out before pointedly turning back to his beer.

Sam was having none of that and put the album down so he could get up to give Dean a hug, which the older Winchester was surprisingly receptive to, despite the risk of having an emotional moment in public. Though Dean had generally eased up on his "chick-flick moments" rule he still got into moods from time to time.

When he returned to his place near Gabriel, the archangel was flipping through Sam’s photos curiously.

‘There aren’t any of me,’ Gabriel pouted.

Sam hesitated before replying. It was always hard to tell if comments like that from Gabriel were serious or not. Sam had deliberately avoided situations that could lead to photos with Gabriel, though until now he hadn’t been conscious of it. It certainly wasn’t something Sam was doing because he didn’t want photos with his lover. It was more to do with Sam’s uncertainty whether the archangel would take a request for photos as Sam confusing him with his vessel.

‘We’ll just have to take some,’ Sam said, gauging Gabriel’s reaction.

The angel grinned and pulled his phone out on the spot. Sam rolled his eyes but acquiesced to a handful of selfies, some of which actually didn’t look too bad.  
Sam pretended not to see the bunny ears because they were such a sad effort from the former trickster he felt they were better off ignored.

One by one guests came to give Sam presents, and grab another slice of the self-replenishing cake (Gabriel had apparently been tampering).

Charlie gave him the entire Game of Thrones series, both books and show, and a stuffed direwolf to go with them.

Claire and Alex had combined efforts to get Sam a card and a new plaid (the message Claire had scrawled on the card insinuated Sam was unable to pick them out for himself, which he put down to teenageritis. His fashion sense was fine).

Jody and Donna both presented Sam with wine, a sort he vaguely remembered liking from the long ago days when Jess’ family had come to visit and taken the young couple to dinner.

Kevin had bought an interesting mythology book he’d apparently found in his university library. ‘I know the bunker doesn’t have it, and I know enough about lore books by now to know the real deal when I see it. This is amazing, Sam. I’m pretty sure a hunter wrote it.’

Kevin’s mother had bought him stationary, which he actually needed after Gabriel had picked up the habit of folding all of Sam’s spare paper into aeroplanes and throwing them at the hunter’s head while he was researching.

Castiel presented Sam with a camera, to fill up his new photo album with.

Eileen gave him a few boxes of bullets and a book of warding spells her guardian had taught her. Sam only knew about three of them. The rest looked incredibly useful.

Sully’s present- Gabriel had talked him out of the jumping castle Sam had wanted when he was eight- was the party, which he and Gabriel had organised together.

 

At around six, guests began to filter out. Eileen had a long drive to her next hunt. Jody had to work the next day and Claire had class in the afternoon. Castiel walked Claire to the door and they spoke while Jody broke up Charlie and Alex’s conversation about how much they both hated the Twilight series.

Sully hugged Sam hard enough to almost suffocate him before vanishing to check up on his kid.

At some point Linda decided Kevin needed to sleep and took him home. By nine, it was just the Winchesters, Gabriel, Castiel and Charlie left. Charlie dragged Dean and Cas away for a Star Wars marathon, because the angel still hadn’t seen it properly, and Gabriel pulled Sam back to their room, snapping his fingers to clean the library when Sam sleepily protested that they couldn’t leave the mess as it was.

‘Still got almost three hours of birthday left, Sammich. Can you think of anything to do?’

Despite the obvious line, Sam was laughing as Gabriel tackled him to the bed.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet, peaceful end to Sam's birthday.

Gabriel pulled Sam down the hallway and shut the door behind them the second they were both in Sam’s room.

Sam was expecting the trickster to make a crass joke and move them towards the bed immediately but instead the archangel sat him down on his desk chair and stood in from of him, looking distinctly nervous.   
Apprehension wasn’t an expression Sam was used to seeing on the Archangel. Billions of years was a long time to work on a decent poker face. 

Briefly it crossed Sam’s mind that Gabriel looked like he was about to get in one knee and propose.   
He was half right. There was no ring, and no kneeling, but the mottled gold, brown and white feather Gabriel held was just as significant.

Sam took it and held it as delicately as he could, examining it. It was small, only as long as Sam’s hand from wrist to fingertip.  
Gabriel’s largest feathers in his vessel were almost three feet long (according to him) and sharp and strong as an archangel blade (in fact Gabriel claimed that’s what the blades were made of, feathers plucked and forged into the swords of the angels they were taken from) but this was small, comparatively. Soft.   
When Sam turned it over and it caught the light he could see blue streaks in the vane. 

Gabriel snapped his fingers and a gold chain and locket appeared in his hand, which he held out to Sam. The feather curled itself up to fit inside so Gabriel could hang it around Sam’s neck. It was warm.

Gabriel kept the birthday celebration going several hours into May 3rd, but when the date had rolled over across the entire continent he relented and let Sam sleep. 

It was a peaceful sleep, the happy, unworried kind Sam hadn’t experienced… Ever. The only dreams he had were made of formless sensations of happiness, and the only thing that disturbed him was Gabriel moving to a more comfortable position once after a few hours.  
Sam barely woke enough to notice. He fell back into his slumber with a smile. 

The next morning, Gabriel was still there rather than up foraging for snacks, and the two left Sam’s room to join their brothers for breakfast, together.


End file.
